Van Gogh House London

Van Gogh House is excited to welcome artist Yingmei Duan as a digital artist in residence with Van Gogh House. Newcastle University (NU) is leading on a new networking project with national and international heritage partners National Trust, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC), and the Artist’s Studio Museum Network to research and understand the international breadth of curatorial activity regarding commissioning contemporary art for heritage sites and archives. As part of the NU research, four artists have been commissioned to engage virtually with the rich history of three specific heritage places in England. Responding to Van Gogh House is artist Yingmei Duan.

 

 

Yingmei Duan is participating in a 100 day online artist residency at Van Gogh House. Over the next 100 days, Duan will document her residency on this page through weekly updates.

art, nudity, eroticism, or sexuality -2

Vincent primarily produced portraits, still life, landscape paintings and drawings. Despite this, there is a belief that he also did some explicit erotic works. When reviewing his artworks, there are almost no pieces that are explicitly erotic.
Vincent had a tumultuous relationship with his sexuality and intimacy, which might have led to the creation of erotic works. People who are introspective or do not like speaking often love to imagine, which might have contributed to the belief in his destroyed erotic works. Additionally, it’s possible that Van Gogh’s erotic paintings were destroyed due to his family’s strong religious background.
Like most artists, he became more interested in painting or drawing naked female models during his time in Paris. I also made a lot of naked model drawings during my art learning, and I am also very happy as a model in drawing lessons.
I have been working as a model for drawing courses Since 2002. Over time, this has become a part of my life. My journey into this line of work began when my teacher, Marina Abramovic, suggested that we consider working as models to earn extra money.

I really enjoy this job; it gives me time to speak with myself while they sketch me. This job has also greatly helped with my nude performance works, expanding my possibilities in creating performance art. In 1995 East Village artists performed “To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain” and “Nine Holes”. That was my first time performing nude. Since 2000, I’ve done more nude performances. I am very grateful to Marina for her excellent teaching and for introducing us to model jobs in drawing lessons in school.

Today, performers perform naked less and less, and sometimes, I feel pity. Sometimes, people ask me why I do naked performances. I always tell them it depends on what kind of performance I conceived. For example, “Venus from rubbish.” If I do this performance, if I wear clothes, it will be very strange.

art, nudity, eroticism, or sexuality -1

I often read about artists and prostitutes. Gauguin and Vincent to Prostitute… Then I got to know 19th-century European artists who often visited brothels. Society had quite an open attitude towards sex and morality at that time. In some areas, brothels were regarded as legal social venues, not only offering sexual services but also serving as places for artists, writers, and entertainers to gather.
In one of my performances in 2003, wrote:
“….Before I was 21 years old, I really knew nothing about sex, and I had never even spoken the word. I had a lot of questions in my mind at that time, for example: “Why does a woman become pregnant?”, “Where do I come from?”, …”
This describes my curiosity about human sexuality. Artists in the East Village are quite young and pursue free expression and unconventional lives compared to regular people. In conventional society, East Village artists had very unconventional lifestyles at that time. Besides their artistic works, they talked a lot about sex and women. Sex made some artists passionate and made others very sad.

I accidentally heard sex-related topics on the radio. Later, through my first boyfriend, who was also living in the East Village, I got to know more about sex. Because of his open-mindedness about sex, we both eventually had an open relationship. I then began to research sexuality and almost became a sexuality scientist through theory and practice.

In many East Village paintings, I think sex played a very important role. One of the paintings I created was named “Artists in Dashanzhuang.” We lived in the Dashanzhuang area, which later became well-known as Beijing East Village. This painting represented my feelings about the artists at that time. However, when some artists found out that I painted them, they suggested I not use the original name, so I changed the name to “Instinkt.”

Many people have already seen the portrait that Rongrong did in East Village in the Tate Modern collection area. The background of this photo was this painting.

excitement, loneliness, melancholy and anger van Gogh

Van Gogh very seldom painted himself in the landscape or among people, so I would like to make some drawings in which Vincent is present. The drawings are the beginning of later development of different art mediums, such as performance, installation, drawing/Painting, video and sound, or a fairy tale text.

1. Excited Van Gogh
a. The background of a London scene that he passes by for work every day, I can draw his excitement.
b. I can make different drawings, each of which related to one of his Women, whom he fell in love with, excited van Gogh
c. In the yellow house excited make the house good, everything i nthe house flying around him , excited Van Gogh
d. Among the simple people like field workers, coal workers, excited van Gogh
e. In different landscapes, excited Van Gogh
….

2. Lonely and melancholy Van Gogh
a. In the mids of rich people dancing, one can see lonely Van Gogh
b. Smoking or drinking alcohol alone
c. In front of the bible, read Melancholy Van Gogh
d. Related to different women and melancholy time too
e. Vincent spent periods of his life in psychiatric hospitals, and I can make some drawings related to these melancholies.
….

3. Angry Van Gogh
a. Angry face of Vincent on the way with sacred Gauguin on his Should
b. His yellow house is either shaking or slowly broken, or all the furniture looks strange
c. All the sunflowers in the landscape were unusual, all facing in one direction.
d. A very big sun looms over the yellow field, seeming to want to burn it. Vincent lies in the field.
e. He throws everything from the windows out of the yellow house, and the children run away.
f. An enormous sea approaches his angry face.
g. His mirror is broken on the floor, reflecting his broken face
…

Anyway, I only wrote some examples from my mind to create some drawings. I can depict his life from childhood until his death, capturing these diverse experiences of excitement, loneliness, melancholy and anger van Gogh during my virtual residency time.

Relationship with Gauguin and one idea of Van Gogh.

Since Gauguin came to live in the Yellow House, they have had different opinions about art and have been fighting constantly.

They both painted the whole day and could not sleep in the evening because they were constantly angry. They ate too little food, were exposed to too much sun, too many colours, too much excitement, and had too much smoke and alcohol in their bodies…

From my side, Gauguin made Van Gogh down, made him feel unconfident, and made him sad and more crazy with mental problems. Actually, Van Gogh should have stayed away from this kind of people. Then maybe his life later would be more lucky. I can understand Van Gogh better than Gauguin because I grew up with speech problem, and I was always behind people in my childhood…

Though Gauguin did not like one idea from Vincent, I like Van Gogh’s one idea about working with different artists very much. He told Gauguin that they were not successful because each artist only did his own painting. Each has its own good or bad side, but if all the Artists work together on one painting, then it brings more success. Seurat painted air, Gauguin painted a landscape, Lautrec painted people, and he painted the sun or stars and moon.

I have been involved in collaboration since 2005, and I really love it! Since 2005, I have done more than 100 collaboration performance projects. solo performances from 2000 until now.

I have only one head, and my knowledge is limited to what I know. Therefore, I have always thought more heads were more clever; each has its own ability.

I’m curious about people, their work, and what they know. So, working together, I believe it will be very strong and we can accomplish great things

I have learned a lot during the collaboration, opened my heart to people, and gained a lot of wisdom.

Working with different people can be challenging, but I have learned a lot about how to arrange problems and how to be more generous.

Yellow house and his painting experience in Arles.

Van Gogh is delighted to have found a city and a house he loves: the yellow house in Arles. After constantly moving around, he wants to settle down here all his life.

All artists are welcome to live in the yellow house rent-free; instead, they can send Theo one painting each month. When Theo has a lot of impressionist paintings, he can move away from Goupil and open his own gallery in Paris.

The floor was made of red tiles. He painted the walls a delicate purple. He bought sheets and pillowcases in a very light greenish-yellow colour, then a scarlet blanket. He painted the bed frame and the chairs as yellow as fresh butter, the door purple, the washstand orange-yellow, and the bowl on it blue….”

I am interested in how he made the colour in his room in Arles. It is a very contemporary and looks like he made a space installation with colour. I can imagine doing one art project in which I arrange the space and things in the space with colour in Van Gogh House London or somewhere, so people will quickly realise it is Van Gogh’s colour.

During the talking with Gauguin, I learned more about van Gogh’s paintings.

He said
“… make paintings enthusiastically.
—Painting the sun, to feel how the sun rotates so quickly and radiates waves of light and heat of enormous power…
… painting a cornfield, to feel how the atoms in the corn push and press…
painting an apple, to feel how the juice of the apple presses against the skin…
…painting a farmer in the field, to feel how the sun flows into the farmer, into the field, into the grain, and how they all flow back into the sun…”

From what van Gogh said, I have a lot of feelings, and I could make different visual artworks.

When van Gogh actually spoke to Gauguin, I still felt that he needed to be more confident in his art. Gauguin is much more confident, but I love, of course, van Gogh’s opinion much more. I also like that he is always doing and going on.
I am very much remembered as the beginning of my art career; if someone saw my paintings and spoke like Gauguin, I was upset and explained again and again…

Mosquito dancing and woman Maya fairy tale

Van Gogh always draws landscapes. He was often bitten by mosquitoes, and when I heard about this, it reminded me of a performance I did in Trinidad called “Mosquito Dancing”—it was really itching. I also thought about creating a painting depicting his legs, marked by mosquito bites that he constantly licked the mosquito bites. I can put this performance documentation and also the painting with mosquito Bites of van Gogh together.

One dialogue that deeply moved me was the exchange between Van Gogh and a woman named Maya. The emotional depth of their conversation inspired me to create a musical piece. Despite my limited piano skills, I felt compelled to compose a simple melody that would capture the beauty, melancholy, and other aspects of their interaction.

“Behind Vincent in the field, he heard a soft voice from a woman who told him that she had been his best friend and loved him and that her love for him would never end. He mentioned his bad teeth, red eyes, thinning hair, and thin …. but the woman responded by saying that she had fallen in love with him the first time she saw his painting and that she had been following him around Europe for the past eight years.

Vincent was deeply touched by her beauty, gentle yet strong presence, kind eyes, and sincerity, especially because women had always looked down on him.
Van Gogh spoke to her about his love to women. He shared his honest thoughts, questioning who would appreciate his hard work and whether his art would ever be valued. She encouraged him that he was great; people would understand his artwork one day after his death; his work would be very expensive; his work would be everywhere in the world…

In another scene, they sat together in a field, her arm resting on his legs. She wore white, exuding purity, creating a romantic and loving atmosphere as they kissed, deeply connected.

Today, I learned a lot about his life in Arles, and I also learned that this city has many sick people with Epilepsy and strong wind.

Van Gogh and Theo chatted before he came to Arles. Again, I felt Vincent was so lucky because his brother supported him. This reminded me of my own life.

I began doing art at the age of 21 in 1991. Luckily, my parents always supported me until I finished studying in Germany in 2007. Even though they did not really like what I did, they gave me the best conditions and let me focus on art. Even my one brother, two sisters, and my husband supported me with their hearts. Therefore, I could focus on art.

During my art career, a lot happened with my family, for example, they regret letting me do art because they always worried about my future life with living and also my health. Even my papa always dreamt that I was sick and no one around me, and he always woke from bad dreams because of me.

One time, my parents visited me in Beijing while I was living in East Village in the 1990s. After they saw my painting, they got so upset that they should have travelled to other cities, but because of their sadness, they could not go on.

My mom was crazy and told me that what I painted, her grandson could do too. And my papa had almost a heart attack. I have many, many regrets from them, and they always wanted to bring me back to them again, and let me go on with my engineering work in my city, and then save a life…

They are always worried about me and always support me, and they hope I can live by myself one day. Luckily, I can live by art after studying performance. I do not have a regular salary, but as an artist, I already have a very good life.

Today, I went through Van Gogh’s catalogue, including his drawings and paintings. Every time I see his paintings, I feel that I want to copy them. When I first began learning art in the 1990s, I copied and painted his paintings a few times. But at that time, I was young and did not really understand him very well. Through this virtual residency, I am really very happy to have the opportunity to learn more about him. I hope one day I really begin to paint again his drawings and paintings to get more of a feel about him and his artworks. Also, I hope also go to Landscape to paint and go to normal people’s lives to make paintings more.

I would quite like to know about an artist’s life and works. I never say that one artist is good or not when I see one or more works. I will decide whether he is a good artist or not after I have done research about his/her whole life and what he has done. Because each artist has done good works, and each artist has not done good works. I always admire artists who are diligent in working, whether their work is good or not, for me, it is not so important. It is important this artist is always doing and thinking and developing.

I also learned that Van Gogh painted many of Jean-François Millet’s paintings. He admired Millet, who loved to paint normal people working. He painted farmers planting seeds, women baking bread, and people working in the fields. Influenced by Millet, Van Gogh made many paintings of simple people, such as working people in the fields, portraits, or doing other work.

He grew up in a good-quality family, but simple people inspired him; he likes to interact with them to draw them.

I will take time to think how I related these kind of art works also to the Van Gogh House in London. I found also I need maybe one day just doing different concepts related to van Gogh’s art works.

These past two days, I’ve learned more about Van Gogh and have many stories about him in my mind.

His brother Theo knew many Impressionist painters, such as Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet. Theo’s connections with these artists provided Van Gogh with an important platform and network. The discussions among Van Gogh and the Impressionist painters enriched Vincent’s understanding of art, inspiring his innovative approaches. This direct contact with them influenced his paintings, especially the use of color.

I’ve been thinking about Van Gogh and the position he held among the artists when he met them through Theo, who was a gallerist.

Through Theo’s support, Van Gogh could fully dedicate himself to painting and drawing.

From this point, I also think of many famous painters throughout history who produced numerous artworks, often supported by contracts or supports and so on. Because of this support, They made a lot of artworks, and therefore, their many artworks are widely seen today.

Having a structured approach, like a contract or a personal rule, is crucial for artists. When I came to Germany for my studies, I made a commitment to create art every day and plan my time. During my studies, I produced many artworks and continued to work on art daily after my studies. This has helped me develop my own artistic practice.

I am currently deeper into Van Gogh’s life by reading a book about him and trying to make some thinking about his paintings or drawings. Then, I would like to develop performance concepts.

He has various fantasies about Ursula. For instance, he imagines her as the wife of a gallery owner or as a priest’s wife living with him. I can imagine making some paintings, and these paintings are dreamlike, capturing her smiles at him.

He teaches in the village and frequently travels to London to try to see Ursula. He would wait in front of her house until all the lights went out.

Another painting: a scene depicted of a man waiting in front of a dark house with an atmosphere of melancholy.

Van Gogh was interested in visiting poor people’s areas. People there had very bad clothes and food. They told him about their difficult lives. Van Gogh tried to speak in front of people in church.

I envision some paintings related to these poor people.

He gets to know about her marriage.

One painting depicts Ursula and her husband sitting in a horse-drawn carriage, kissing each other, with Van Gogh’s face looking very sad in the background.

Another painting captures the sounds of happy music and people dancing at a wedding, with individuals throwing rice in congratulations.

I have read almost all of his letters since yesterday, and it is very interesting to know that in most of them, he wrote about the details of his drawings and paintings and the progress of using different materials like coal, pen, and colour. From his letters, I learned about his colour theory. Of course, I need to read his letters one by one slowly, over time.

Van Gogh was a truly diligent artist. He spent all his time drawing or painting, thinking and developing, and putting all his energy and passion into his creations.

From his diary, I can see my own art life, too. Since childhood, I have had dreams of art; therefore, since I was 21, I have begun an artist life. Until now I feel like I live in a dream and I love art creating.

Today, I spoke with my husband, Jürgen Bernhard Kuck, about Van Gogh. Jürgen is an artist, art educator, and writer. He is very knowledgeable; his whole life has been spent reading, writing, and drawing almost daily.

We rarely learn about Van Gogh’s childhood from his books, as well as his relationship with his parents and other children in the family and his childhood surroundings. I am very interested in how his personality developed during his childhood and what his childhood was like until he was 20 years old. I like to do research about him also through my life experience. I like to analyze this aspect of his life. I would like to create some performances related to different art mediums through my imagination.

Today, I learned more about his time in the house in London, Ursula and her family, and his love for her. I also learned more about Van Gogh’s father and mom, and his work in the London Gallery.

I can make some paintings related to his living in London house.

-—- He tried to win her love but received coldness from her. I can imagine how hard it was for Van Gogh, and I can read his inside: I can paint his emotions toward Ursula—his dream love, passion, sadness, melancholy and disappointment. The atmosphere of all paintings is very quiet, naive and melancholic, as if something is flying to his dream…

His mom is worried about him because she can feel something wrong with Van Gogh, and his papa is disappointed because he did not follow his way as a priest. I can express my feelings in paintings between his mom and him. For example, I can portray her with nice eyes staring at him and with a worried expression. Additionally, I can depict his hug with a larger hand to his body and a mom’s loving feeling. The father can be portrayed sitting somewhere with a cross, and Van Gogh can be included somewhere in the painting to create a sense of distance. Papa and van Gogh visit poor people; I can also open my imagination to paint…maybe also related to my family papa and mom love.

He does not focus on his work in the London gallery because of the sad love.

I can make a painting featuring poor people in the gallery, not just rich people. I can imagine a painting of a rich woman with a feather on her body. I can also paint the inside of van Gogh in the gallery with hating this kind of society people.

In a way, that allows me to imagine creating all the paintings, such as fairy tales and other fantasy themes.

Today is the first day I do “Yingmei curious about Vincent Van Gogh”. In the morning, I tried to read in German about his landscape catalog, Vincent Van Gogh – Die Rohrfederzeichnungen. If I read in German for just one hour with no internet translation for this project, I think 100 hours are really too short.

Then I tried via the internet to read about his drawings in Chinese. In the past, I did not know many of Van Gogh’s drawings, but since this month, I have discovered more of his drawings. His drawings reminded me of when I was in Beijing in 1991, starting my art learning. I often drew in different classes and modes, sketched at the railway station, and sometimes stayed in the station almost the whole day to make drawings. I was so lucky each day to draw because I finally realised my art-learning dream.

As I saw so many drawings, my first feeling was that I wanted to make them three-dimensional and include people in them. 3 or 5 different drawings appeared in 3D landscapes as an installation. People could also hear the songs of birds, feel the wind, and breathe fresh air.

Another thought was I want to perform outside each day for 3 months: sitting in the landscape in the countryside or in the city each day, creating drawings.

In the afternoon, I got Livia’s book from China, and I read some of his diaries. I like this book. It will help me learn more about his thoughts. Then, I can analyse Van Gogh to understand what kind of person he is.

And later, I also listened a bit to his story in London with the girl he fell in love with, and then I can imagine how hard it is for him…

With 25 years of focusing on performance art, I have established my own system using the following categories: “Solo Performance,” “Performance Installation,” “Changing Exhibition,” “Daily Live Art Performance,” “Equal Collaborative Performance,” “Object Interactive Performance,” “Object & Video Interactive Performance,” and “Sound & Music Performance.” In the form of “Daily Live Art Performance,” I will realise my entire 3-month virtual residency as a performance art project. 

Without an on-site residency at Van Gogh House, I cannot directly, physically feel the historical significance of the space, so I would like to create a connection with Van Gogh House through imagination. I dedicate one hour a day to learning more about Van Gogh. I intend to create several virtual art performances incorporating painting, installation, video, writing, sound and photography. Some of these virtual concepts will be interactive and collaborative. I would like to work on the basis of the following ideas:

 

“I am interested in learning about Van Gogh’s life in London. I would like to know more about his relationships with his parents, his brother, and the girl he fell in love with. I am intrigued by Van Gogh’s connections with people, his home, and the landscapes surrounding him… 

 

I am interested in his entire biography, as well as his drawings and paintings. I want to learn about his longings, joys, worries, melancholy, passions, decadence, fears, and more…

 

During this virtual residency, I also want to relate this exploration to my own life, including my relationships with my family members, my love life, my surroundings, my emotions, and my connections with people from different parts of the world. All the virtual concepts will be related to the past, present, and future, and can address various topics in our contemporary society.“

“We are delighted to welcome Yingmei to the Van Gogh House as part of this exciting research project with Newcastle University. In particular we are interested in her performance practice and look forward to seeing how Yingmei engages remotely with all that the house has to offer!“

– Livia Wang, Creative Director of Van Gogh House